


A Shrike To Your Sharp And Glorious Thorn

by chewysugar



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Bars and Pubs, Cheating, Domestic Disputes, F/M, Fights, Flirting, Forgiveness, Friendship, Guilt, Masturbation, Men Crying, Reconciliation, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 16:13:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16498811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: They've never had a fight so bad before. Separated in the aftermath, Peter and Mary Jane take a good hard look at their own insecurities, demons, and fears.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one is dedicated to all the people who like my other Peter/MJ stories.
> 
> Inspired by the song "Shrike" by Hozier.

The witch of November had laid her curse upon the city of New York. Gray skies clamped tightly over every apartment building and skyscraper; steel bridges shrank in on themselves at the touch of Atlantic chill, groaning in protest as the lifeblood of traffic kept their roads warm. Footsteps were hurried; necks kept bowed. The unfortunate homeless huddled together for warmth, finding whatever scrap of succor they could from a season that promised an unrelenting winter with every stir of dead leaves and blast of frigid wind.

Through this tempered tempest walked a woman whose loose tresses looked as if they could set the icy air on fire. But Mary Jane Watson’s fiery hair paled in comparison to the sheer inferno that ravaged her heart as she hurried down the sidewalk that gloomy November evening. Tears stung her cheeks, made almost blazing by the bite of cold. But she wouldn’t let herself do more than let them flow. Sobbing didn’t suit her; never had. Open weeping gave all the pressure and darkness audible cue as to where to find her and sink their fangs in.

Still, as she hurried along, her breath creating clouds before her, she very much wanted to sob.

No. Not just sob.

Scream.

One of those insidious voices in her mind said, “Sure, go ahead and scream your pretty little head off. Didn’t get your fill up there, did you, Little Red?”

MJ mentally flipped the voice off, even as her heart ached anew. Despite what she tried to tell herself, she had screamed a lot. At someone who, in retrospect, didn’t entirely deserve it. She had also said things she rather wished she hadn’t, but, as she’d learned, she couldn’t take it back. If only that were her super power: to pluck words and actions out of existence and erase them.

_I’m a monster_ , she thought as she crossed the street. She needed a cigarette, and stopped at the nearest convenience store to grab a pack. Her mood being especially foul, she didn’t say a word to the kindly old lady behind the counter despite their having been acquaintances for some time. Mary Jane knew full well that this action of lashing out would only bury her deeper. In all honesty she wanted to continue piling the dirt over herself until she choked. It was what she deserved after all, and what Peter deserved for having started their whole explosive fight in the first place.

_Now that_ , said a different voice, one more entirely attached to the unity of her being and less to the diaspora of poor mental health, _is complete bullshit. You can bury yourself under that if you like, but you better not complain about the smell._

MJ could have spat iron, because the notion had it hit here in her fleshy vulnerables. It was, in fact, quite telling of how pointless the argument had been that she couldn’t, not fifteen minutes after the fact, recall for the life of her what had started it. All she knew for certain was that she was now here, in the cold, with a packet of Camels she no longer felt like smoking, and fresh from a crying spell the likes of which she hadn’t experienced since the death of her mother.

Equilibrium soon took hold. Mary Jane sank onto a bench across the street from a lively little bar. Her legs felt like rubber bands that had been stored in subarctic temperatures. Leaving the apartment in leggings and a sweater was hazard to warmth. Now, chilled to the bone, thoroughly alone and short the ten dollars and fifty cents the pack of cigarettes had cost her, she felt truly wretched.

As she caught her breath and allowed her heart rate to return to its regular rhythm, she tried to think of what she must look like to an outside observer: a diminished wreck of a girl dressed inappropriately for inclement weather, clutching a cigarette carton in her hand, with a tear-stained, chapped-lip face. Not a pretty picture for real life. But a perfectly lovely one for a romantic comedy’s big "all-is-lost" moment.

_No_ , she thought. _Not a rom-com_. The situation was darkly funny, as were most things in life, but not the luminous, hygienic funny of a Nora Ephron feature. It was more a Woody Allen moment: the ingenue contemplating the immensity of this particular slice of life whilst under the thumb of the pressure of living. It was quirky but in a sad way, and in any case, if MJ deserved anything at that moment, she decided it was to be directed by a nebbish man with mommy issues and a highly controversial and sketchy past.

But it wasn’t a movie, no matter how much it felt like one. She couldn’t sit here on the bench until the scene ended. It was her duty as a human being to pick the pieces up and keep going.

The door to the bar across the street opened. A group of people who liked far too young to be dressed the way they were let alone be leaving a booze house rushed out. Their giggles and incomprehensible chatter made Mary Jane want to throw her shoe at them. How dare they be cheerful and giddy when a piece of her life’s foundation had been shaken loose?

Seized by an irrational need to make something else feel as rotten as she did, MJ got to her feet. So easily could she picture herself berating the group of eighteen year olds. She wasn’t even a decade their senior, but she’d look and talk like some old biddy with a vendetta against The Young. But by the time she got three steps away from her safety bench, she found her needs turning to something more base and less likely to get her in someone else’s Instagram video. She didn’t need to rail against the youths of today. Nor did she need to inhale the carcinogenic cocktail of a good smoke.

She needed a fucking drink.


	2. Chapter 2

Many homes in New York City, and indeed around the world, could lay claim to soaking in the clamor of their residents. Some of these places had the misfortune of absorbing the pain and trauma like tobacco smoke. These unfortunate homes often went under the moniker of “haunted” when really they were just remembering--caught in a coma of past wrongs and deep sins.

For the most part, the walls of the apartment Peter Parker shared with Mary Jane Watson in Chelsea were devoid of such imprints. That, however, did not mean they hadn’t seen certain things. Tonight they’d seen a childish tiff blown out of proportion into a nuclear fight. They watched now, from the vantage of the living room, as the master of the house fell to pieces on the sofa. Despite his being of the male persuasion, the walls knew Peter to be an emotional seismograph. He expressed joy and anger and sorrow openly, in a way that stood him apart from the typical male, with his stoic mask and borderline phobia of emotion.

Even to the understanding walls, though, this howling, eye smashing, snot dripping bawling was a trifle pathetic. If they could talk, the walls would have told Peter to kindly remember that he had a sizeable pair of testicles, looked and sounded pitiful, and could do with calming down.

Peter would have told the walls to pound salt in response. As architecture was incapable of expression—and also sentience—Peter found himself a sobbing mess in his own home. Aunt May would be pleased that she’d taught him not to choke his feelings down like most boys did. Then, again, if she knew what had brought on her nephew’s emotional collapse, she’d likely have swatted him upside the head with a cast-iron skillet.

Lovers argued. Peter had understood that from childhood. He hadn’t entered into any of his relationships believing that things would be all lollipops, puppies and rainbows. Still, never in his life had he ever gotten into it this bad, and certainly not with MJ.

_You’re a piece of shit_ , he thought, and he thought it repeatedly as he clutched a throw pillow to his face to better bury his wailing. He couldn’t remember what had started the fight, which only proved that it had been over something unimportant. But he’d said things he wished he hadn’t; he’d hurt the woman he loved more than anything in the world in the process. And, as both the cliche and Christina Aguilera song sagely put it, he’d hurt himself by hurting her.

Judging from how MJ had flown from the apartment, Peter could well imagine her never coming back. Vivid mental tape ran through his mind in full stereo sound: he could see MJ putting as much space between her and their apartment as possible; he saw her frantic and broken; and he heard her finally make up her mind not to come back.

As if it had been the first time she’d put space between them.

Peter’s body shook. He’d brought up that little detente in their relationship during the argument. What that had to do with anything was a guess for the philosophers. Mary Jane had come back to him after all her running; that was the only thing that should have mattered. But in the grips of his anger and petulance, Peter had come out swinging.

MJ had likewise given back. Her powers of both defence and offence were two of the many qualities Peter loved. Tonight, though, she’d been on the warpath to keep herself safe, and she’d said things that had cut like a knife. Not that Peter didn’t deserve it after being the one who started the tiff. And if he hadn’t been responsible for lighting the spark, he sure as hell hadn’t done much to quell the fires.

Looking around through blurry eyes, Peter found it rather surprising that the walls still stood; that the television and entertainment systems hadn’t melted; that all their knick-knacks and memorabilia hadn’t turned to ash. His whole world was rapidly deteriorating like the city of Pompeii. He, of course, held the blame as the proverbial Mount Vesuvius.

Just at the moment when he felt like he could cry himself to death, he heard voice—mercifully emanating from within his spirit and not from the outside—telling him to get out.

_Get out, bug boy_ , said the ghost of Gwen Stacy—again, someone who had had an unwarranted cameo in The Amazing Fight Between Peter and MJ’s 2: The Rise of The Break Up. _Get out and clear your head_.

On legs that felt like toothpicks, Peter stumbled from the living room to his bedroom. He tried hard not to look at the bed, or think about the fact that he could be sleeping alone for quite literally the remainder of his life. His fingers clenched his clothes, vicelike in order to have something to keep himself grounded, and he stripped down. He found the skin of Spider-Man—a far more prominent player in the horror show that had been the fight—and slipped into it.

Without all due for caution in regards to preserving his secret identity, he crept to the window. A cold blast of wind hit him in the chest. With nothing below his suit, he felt the cold like a million tiny knives. No matter. He deserved worse for what he’d done.

Get a grip, he thought. And so, he fired a line of webbing, gripped it tightly, and swung away from the smouldering ruins of the one life he truly wanted to live.


	3. Chapter 3

Mary Jane appreciated a good dive. Perhaps it was an appendices from her days toiling as a waitress-slash-bartender-slash-line cook-slash-bouncer. Granted, her days seeking out her passion while having to pay her bills weren’t exactly of the halcyon variety; but it had been simpler than what she’d found herself in…not to mention utterly lonely.

So it was that the low ceiling, dim lights of the bar she’d been sitting across the street from had a strange, homey feeling. The general buzz of conversation and yacht rock tumbling from all around helped drown out the clamor of her own thoughts.

She took a seat at the bar as if it were a safe harbor in turbulent waters. Without hearing her own voice, she ordered a sangria. There were no boys here to impress by drinking beer, or girls to feel superior to by sucking back rye whiskey as if it were soda water. The booze could be both her North Star or her albatross. At the moment she didn’t care which. All MJ wanted was something to silence the voices in her head and the gnawing guilt in her heart.

Several sips in and the buzz hadn’t hit. Being a reformed party girl proved fatal to low alcohol tolerances, and she and Peter didn’t exactly live like saints. MJ recalled one fun little get together when Peter has gotten so sauced— no meager feet given his superhero high resistance to substance—that he’d gone streaking down the corridor of their apartment floor, much to the delight of herself, all those gathered, and the older married gay couple three suites down. The memory brought a grin to Mary Jane’s lips that quickly drowned in a flash flood of misery.

She’d be lucky if she ever heard from Peter again after the shit she’d said to him.

Staring into the blood red depths of her drink, MJ mustered all her faculties to try and remember what had brought the fight on. But again, the answer floundered beneath the surface of her crashing emotional waves. What did it matter who’d started it? The result was this—painful separation, wrenching loneliness and a maelstrom of despair.

MJ looked around the bar. Barely forty-five minutes had elapsed since she’d sat down, and now it seemed as if some cold Atlantic rain had swept away whatever welcome the place had initially offered. The fact of the matter sent her reeling again: she didn’t know any of these people, and she ought to be around some friendly face given her stormy frame of spirit and the strength of the spirits in her drink.

Through the raging seas of folk and the gale of noise came a siren call that made MJ jump.

“Mary Jane Watson as I live and breathe and drink.”

MJ looked around knowing full well that she’d see five-feet-six inches of a twenty-one waist, thirty-five hips, forty bust and platinum  
blonde hair. Sure enough, Felicia Hardy—decked in fashionable black for the weather and carrying a tall one of IPA—slid onto the bar stool next to MJ with feline grace to put Christina Hendricks to shame.

“I must be more miserable than I thought,” MJ muttered, “if I’m happy you’re here.”

Felicia only laughed. “What’s a place like you doing in a girl like this?”

“Oh you know...making healthy life choices.” MJ batted her lashes in a show of Sandra Dee purity. “I thought that poisoning my liver would be better than damaging my newly healthy lungs.”

Felicia took a long pull on her beer. Some of the froth lingered on her cherry lips. It was probably unintentional, but Felicia still made a show of licking the foam in a manner as to cause at least one of the men in the vicinity to pop wood. Fortunately the bartender shared MJ’s derision: the woman rolled her eyes and moved on, muttering darkly to herself.

“Don’t tell me,” Felicia said: “this has something to do with your darling little num-num-num?”

Mary Jane sighed. It wasn’t fair: she’d asked the universe for a friend and it had sent her a frenemy instead. But any port in a storm, she supposed.

“Peter Peter pumpkin eater,” she recited, keeping her freshly stinging eyes trained on the dregs of her sangria. “Had a girlfriend and couldn’t keep her.”

Several moments of silence followed, and MJ nervously glanced Felicia’s way. She always painted certain people in the wrong light, and Felicia Hardy was one of them. It couldn’t be helped, of course, given that Felicia never seemed to decide if she wanted to take life seriously or continue cavorting like a Jellicle cat. Right now, her somber face and understanding eyes only serves to make MJ feel all the more rotten about herself. Why did she always have to go being wrong about people? It was as if all her shameful neon were exposed here and now, in this crowded, noisy bar. Did she use Peter as a shield against all that noise? Was that such a terrible thing when she was this person beneath the layers?

“It must have been pretty good to have enticed you into buying those.” Felicia nodded at the cigarette pack on the bar next to MJ’s drink.

“It was epic,” MJ murmured. “Independence Day levels of destruction.”

“Jesus Christ on toast,” Felicia sighed. She took another gulp. “Look, I know we’ve got this crazy Stephanie Zinone and Paulette Rebchuck shtick between the two of us, but I would like to help...”

Mary Jane stared dumbly at Felicia. “Did...did you just reference Grease 2?”

Felicia rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend you didn’t want to be Michelle Pfeiffer over Olivia Newton-John.”

“Well yeah but—

“How about I steer this subject back on course, hm?” Felicia finished off her beer in one swift gulp. “I wanna help. What do you need from me right now? A shoulder? An ear? A slap across my face and a resounding ‘nunya bizness?’”

Perhaps there truly were something akin to friendship between the two of them after all. Instead of shutting down, Mary Jane found herself actually confiding in Felicia. The words swelled and created like a furious tide, and she found herself remembering for the first time all night just what had been said and done during the fight with Peter. Her voice shook and her hands gripped her sangria to the point of white knuckles, but she couldn’t stop. She needed to get this out, to tell someone before it drover her mad. For so long she’d resented that Peter had once been Felicia Hardy’s, but here she found she appreciated it; because Felicia knew all of Peter’s ticks and quirks. MJ didn’t have to explain her one hundred per cent suspicion that she’d likely left him a blubbering mess back in Chelsea; or that the anger within him had imploded on itself towards the tail end of the fight; or that she’d been the one to keep instigating. Felicia filled the blanks in, sitting in stony silence as MJ poured her heart out.

When she’d gotten all the gory details out on the open water, she felt as if she’d swam the length of the Panama Canal.

Felicia rubbed at her eyes. “So...apologize?” It sounded so simply stupid.

“I’ve thought about it,” MJ admitted. “It’s just...I don’t know if I can this time.”

“You had a fight, Red. It happens to the best of couples—of which you and Peter most certainly are.”

“It was different this time...”

“In what way?”

“In that I invoked She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” Mary Jane stared determinedly at the vast array of liquor bottles behind the bar. She felt Felicia’s gaze on her, and that was all she needed—not the disappointment, dawning comprehension and eventual shock she knew would be crossing the blonde bombshell’s face.

“Oh my god,” Felicia breathed after far too long a pause for MJ’s peace of mind.

“Pretty fucked up, huh? I mean, she was my friend once upon a time and I just...dragged her into it to hurt him.” Gwen hadn’t deserved that. Neither had Peter for that matter.

In one swift movement, Felicia reached across the bar, took MJ’s sangria and downed the remainder. Before Mary Jane could protest, Felicia banged it back on the counter. Then she glared at MJ like a thunderstorm over the high oceans.

“Tough titty,” Felicia said.

MJ stared. “I don’t think you—

“Dog shit, Red. It don’t change a thing. You had a fight and said things you shouldn’t have. The way you must be feeling right now is fifty shades of suck, but you can’t wallow in self pity. Go back home and work it out. You two have gone through worse shit than having a squabble.” Felicia’s voice got shriller as her frustration grew. “Jesus. I thought you two were more emotionally intelligent than this. Don’t go ruining because it got a wee bit tough, or I’ll...I’ll have you arrested.”

She got to her feet, slammed a crisp twenty in front of MJ and said, still shaking with rage, “Thanks for the fucking sangria.” And with that she disappeared into the riptide of the bar and was soon out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

Great heights such as those traversed by Spider-Man gave him an appreciation for the solidity of earth. Though the rush of cold around him as he swung from building to building had little by way of comparison, he always looked forward to coming back to rest on the ground. Tonight especially, he found himself in vital need of the sheer stable presence of terraferma.

Time became transitory long before he’d noticed it passing him by. Thoughts that he’d tried to swing away from took root in his brain. No amount of fleeing would sever the grip they had on the once fertile grounds of his usually steady mind.

He felt the cold, too. Usually he had some kind of layer on underneath his costume when the weather turned. Having simply thrown his suit on, he felt the chill like the pelting of a billion tiny rocks against his body.  
  
The rational piece of his mind kept attempting to lure him down the loamy path homewards. But he felt too high on his immaturity to bother heeding it. What right had he to return to that bower known as home when he’d nearly razed the whole sheltering forest of it to dirt?

Besides, he was sure he’d calm down soon enough. So it had been an hour and some change since he’d gone swinging? So he kept batting down every logical reason he had for turning around? That didn’t mean he would never go back...he just needed more time to think.

He swing between a cluster of office buildings. Recognition in the back of his mind made a valiant attempt to break through the sifting soil of his emotional state like a mole: he should know where he was. But it simply felt too good to be stuck in this vast fault line of self pity.

Bright orange streaked to his right. Spider-Man glanced sidelong and saw what appeared to be a meteorite moving at rapid speed through the frosty air towards him. He arched high, and came to land on the rooftop garden of a sandstone apartment building. A split second later the living flame joined him.

“Not to sound like Bella Swan,” Johnny Storm said as the flames melded back into his skin, “but you didn’t even say hi to me back there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dude, you swung past the Baxter Building like four times. I tried sending you a text...” His eyes, blue and mirthful as the first burst of spring blossoms, quickly raked down Spider-Man’s body. “Judging from the free-balling, I’m guessing you didn’t bring your phone with you.”

“Shit.” He had, indeed, been in such a hurry to leave the war zone back in Chelsea that he’d neglected to take his phone. It was such a stupid thing to do—after all, shouldn’t his first reaction after calming down have been to call the woman who held his soul?

“What’s going on, Pete?” Johnny frowned. He was dressed in loose, comfortable clothes—so he’d obviously been a little moved by both sight and silence of his best friend. “You sound like you swallowed a handful of rock salt.”

“Well...”

Johnny’s eyes widened. “Oh crap, man. Have you been crying?”

Spider-Man stared out over the lights of New York City, dotting the gloaming like so many flowers. Johnny was his best friend; and Peter Parker was nothing if not unlike the usual man. Then again, in his experience of the world, the usual man was more unusual than the usual man. He had nothing to hide from Johnny; and even if he had, he couldn’t. Johnny had the powers of fire not only because of his exposure to intergalactic radiation, but because he himself had a knack for illuminating and warming the things people attempted to keep hidden in the dark caverns of their hearts.

“Yeah,” Spider-Man sighed. “I, uh, I have...and you know how glamorous and quiet that is when it comes to me.”

He felt Johnny walk towards him. A second later, a heavy, warm hand curled around his shoulder. Strange how he’d been looking for some kind of firm ground to stand on and the universe had sent him a flesh, blood and fire being.

“Wanna talk about it?”

What a folly that he’d felt confident in the idea that his defenses had replenished themselves. Those four words cracked through the flimsy bedrock of his emotional state; his eyes burned again.

“I do,” he said, not daring to look Johnny in the face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be falling to pieces like this...”

Johnny snorted. “Yes because the world really needs more guys tamping their emotions down. Here.” He stretched an arm out and set a dead potted plant on one side of the atrium ablaze. “You’re freezing your balls off—quite literally. Warm up a bit and then lay it on me.”

“Thanks, man.” Spider-Man shuffled towards the crackling flames. It astounded him just how much the touch of warmth actually did soothe away his pain—a veritable summer breeze to his frozen tundra. Granted, he felt so overwhelmingly grateful for a friend having pulled him from that tangled forest of shame that he wanted to blubber and weep once more; but the longer he stood before the merry warmth, the less he felt ensnared by the vines of emotion.

Johnny let him have his silence. They’d played stalwart support to each other many times in the past— so many times that Johnny knew better than to shatter the contemplative quiet until Peter was good and ready. Eventually peace of mind took seed; without a thought for his vulnerable position in open air, Spider-Man peeled his mask off. He grimaced at his stinging dry eyes and the crust that had formed around his nostrils. He wiped his face on the back of his glove.

“Remind me to stop by the dry cleaner’s.”

“Sure. I’ll leave you a voicemail.”

Peter sighed. He couldn’t deny the elephant it’s presence in the room any longer.

Stilted, the words tumbled from him like so many falling dead leaves. He focused on the fire and the heat, doing his utmost not to care whenever emotion cracked his voice. Dependable as a mountain, Johnny said nothing until Peter had exhausted himself in laying out the sad, sad tale in its entirety.

“So...go home then.”

Peter looked round. Johnny was watching him with an almost wry smile.

“Come on, Pete. You said it yourself: you’re just running away. So go back to your place and fix this.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Even to Peter’s own ears that sounded somewhat too pitiful.

“Feed me that crock, by all means.” Johnny folded his arms over his chest. “You had a fight. I get it. Sue and Reed have had theirs. I’ve gotten into some heated ones with the women in my life too. At least, I did with the ones who didn’t turn out to be Skrulls in human clothing.”

“Yeah but—

“You’re hurting. I get it, dude. You feel more rotten ‘cause of the crap you said. But Peter, this isn’t like the kind of scuffle you get into with the bad guys. You lose your head in a fight with people you really love. And if you wanna keep whipping yourself for it, I won’t stop you, Silas. But let me crack this little Da Vinci code for you before it turns into an epic shitstorm.”

“I’m going to need a GPS to figure that one out.”

Johnny chuckled. “Try and find your way with this set of directions then: you wouldn’t be falling to pieces in front of me if you were one of those men who needed a reason to get out of a relationship. And Mary Jane wouldn’t have put as much distance between the two of you as she could if she wanted to keep on hurting the both of you. I guess the TL;DR version of this is that you guys love each other too much to actually let this come between you. You need some time to cool down. I get it. But the longer you run away the more excuses you’ll find not to turn around.” Johnny’s malleable gaze darkened to the point that Peter actually felt somewhat afraid. “And if you don’t turn your narrow ass around, I’ll turn you into barbecue tarantula and serve you to the yuppies in Central Park.”

It made perfect sense. It was, in fact, the precious gemstone hidden within the jagged rocks Peter had let himself be buried under. But there was still something sharp pricking at him—something that made him want to cross his fingers as he nodded.

“You’re not just a pretty face after all, Storm.”

“And you’re not as smart as you like to think, Parker.”

Peter laughed. “Do you really think I’ve got a narrow ass?”

“No. I just said that to hurt you because you’re sinking my ship.”

“Good. That was an unwarranted attack on my self-esteem.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. Flames began to roll across his body. “Well excuse me, princess. If it makes you feel any better, I think you have a nice ass. Now get it back to your girlfriend before I kick it.” Johnny took to the air a moment later, and waved his farewell.

Peter watched him go, still comforted by the warmth crackling behind him. After several moments, he put his mask back on, feeling more calm than he had in hours. Johnny had it right, of course.

But Peter wasn’t ready to return to the familiar turf of his home. Not just yet.


	5. Chapter 5

Between MJ and the young man, it was hard to tell who was the moth and who was the enticing light. The bar had become practically inhospitable after Felicia’s tea spilling. Mary Jane had needed to get out of the dimness and into the brighter night of a Big Apple November. She’d found herself at a nearby night market, frequented by college kids and hipsters of all stripes, and that was where, in need of a charger for his iPhone, MJ had made the acquaintance of this beautiful stranger. It could have been Fate that she’d had the exact make of tech he’d needed; and indeed, Mary Jane would have shone a bright searchlight on the stupidity of such a thought on any other night. But tonight, now that the stars had realigned themselves somewhat in her night sky, she wanted to play again.

Together she and her newfound ray of light wandered among the bright and busy booths. He had so many questions, and she, lies. Why no, she wasn’t with anyone, and yes he could escort her around for a while and maybe more. Temptation flirted before MJ like a sparkling sprite, leading her on when all reason told her that this was overstepping her bounds.

What woman or man wouldn’t want to make this guy smile, though? Tall, rugged, dressed sharply for the night air. His deep-set eyes crinkled with mirth and intelligence, and were as brown as Peter’s puppydogs; the tear-drop curve of them put MJ in mind of the kind of handsome that fairy tales ascribed to every true Prince Charming and gallant knight. He carried a sex appeal and a look so devastating it could have made Lee Byung-Hun look commonplace.

How long had it been since she’d let herself flirt with someone, for Christ’s sake? How long had she felt a thrill at someone looking her up and down like a Christmas tree all aglow? Yes she and Peter were together, but they’d fallen into some kind of track—one where every “I love you” seemed pale and grey as opposed to rosy sunrise red. At least with her mysterious stranger, MJ could feel wanted.

But it, like everything she said to him, was a grand mirage—a trick of sunlight against coarse sand. She was too acutely aware of just why it was that she was doing this: why she let him get a little too close in line for some hot apple cider; why she let herself gaze at his body and fantasize about stripping him down.

It would make perfect sense for her to do something so heinous. After all, that was what Mary Jane Watson was famous for: destroying good things. She’d deserve nothing more or less than being the supernova that vaporized her and Peter’s carefully constructed and brutally fought for universe.

And really, this guy seemed a good catch for the occasion: sexy, charming, polite...she wondered how long they could last before she ruined him too. The shame would blind her, the guilt, burn like the surface of the sun. She’d end up lost in the stinging truth of her mistakes, and she would deserve it because she could never keep a sacred fire lit long enough.

Like a will-o-wisp, Mary Jane danced away from those thoughts. She fought them with proximity and precociousness. She pressed herself too close, moved her body a little too seductively for such a mundane little stroll. Her lips curled when she felt the man harden. His face turned slightly red, and his eyes widened a little. She wondered if she’d scared him; but then his grin matched hers, and he twined his fingers within the clutch of her hand.

Yes, this would do nicely. Let the light of judgement shine on what a no good, argumentative, unfaithful whore she was. Let it burn her away to nothing until she had nothing left to lose. As long as she could stop pretending that she was some beacon in the darkness; as long as she could stop feeling so damn miserable every time she let people down.

Deeper into the market they went. MJ was pressed so close that she could smell the man’s cologne, musky and delicious and so unlike the cool, crisp of Peter’s—the one he’d spilled all over her bathrobe one night by accident, making her smell him every time she wanted to lounge around the apartment.

Something like a shock of lightning illuminated the entirety of MJ’s soul, so that she saw beyond her own damaged and reeling ego.

Peter’s cologne. Peter’s smell. The sound of his voice. The way he teared up easier than she did when really moved. His courage. His tragedy. His frustrating habit of licking peanut butter off the butter knife instead of spreading the remainder on his toast.

The stranger tested his luck: his arm snaked tentatively around her shoulder. It wasn’t possessive—he was only testing to see if she’d really give herself to this wanton fireworks display, or scamper away like a raccoon startled by headlights.

MJ looked into his eyes—and they were too different. They didn’t look at her with the understanding of who she really was—not just the good and the bad, but the whole damn full and glorious constellation that made up her identity.

A piece of that identity—something like the more adult version of herself, which was ludicrous given that she was barely past twenty-five—stared back from some galactic distance. And it was scowling, shaking it’s head.

_You are not a teenager anymore_ , it said. _Now stop fucking acting like one._

Felicia had told her to go home, and she hadn’t because of pride; pride had almost damaged everything beyond repair. She’d rather wallow than actually let herself be loved—let herself believe that someone could love her unendurably.

They’d fought, but that didn’t matter. There was still light in the darkness.

MJ stepped away from her mystery man, and it was a sign that he was indeed a good person that he didn’t try to grab at her or force her to stay. He looked stricken, but didn’t move as she fled into the crowd, away from the market—back to the guiding star that she hoped beyond all reason she could still catch in her hand. 


	6. Chapter 6

Spider-Man crawled into darkness and there became Peter Parker once more. He’d swung half-way across the city and beneath the Queensboro Bridge to come to Aunt May’s house, and all because he’d chickened out at the last second. He felt utterly idiotic—like a little boy who’d run back under the covers because his nightlight had finally sputtered out of existence. To add perfect insult to injury, Aunt May wasn’t at home. Tonight was her language course at the nearby community college—Peter had come here for someone else to talk to, only to find shadows and stillness.

Even after all this time, the place still smelled like home. How many times had he woken up in the middle of the night from some bad dream as a child, peering into the darkness, only to realize the safety he had with his aunt and uncle? The house had been a refuge from everything for so long. But like everything he clung to, this was fallible to the lurking predators.

Peter walked carefully, quietly through the living room. Aunt May had already started slowly infiltrating Christmas into her surroundings. The tether of dim lights along the mantelpiece brought a gentle smile to Peter’s face. It seemed so ludicrous that after so many strives towards adulthood and independence, he still wanted here when the chips were down.

He took the stairs slowly, feeling like a thief in the night even though this was as much his home as Aunt May’s. All the confusion and hurt of the last several hours had given way to sheer void; he wanted nothing more than to be swallowed by the quiet darkness of this place of safety and memory for the rest of his life. He certainly couldn’t go back to Chelsea...at least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

Through the hallway dark and clean he found his old bedroom. Everything stayed as it had once been when he’d moved out all those years before: the same pictures peered from the dark walls; all his old collectibles, the ones he hadn’t bothered carting to his first apartment, still stood on the dresser and the desk. Even his old bed remained with the same sheets and pillows.

Peter sighed. Exhaustion seized him so acutely that he collapsed on the mattress. Even though this home had once been his, he felt all but abandoned—like some insignificant celestial body swallowed by the capacious maw of a black hole. That conversation with Johnny had put things into perspective, but the fact of the matter was, he was still scared out of his mind of going back to Chelsea and finding the place empty.

And why wouldn’t it be? He didn’t deserve someone as incredible as Mary Jane, not if one stupid fight like this could drive such a gulf of emptiness and night between them.

Peter glanced at the pictures on the wall. Through the gloom, he found the only memento that remained of Gwen Stacy in this place. They were grinning like the dopey teenagers they had been. But that photograph didn’t capture the intelligence and feistiness that had once been Peter’s first love. She didn’t put up with a lot—and she wouldn’t stand for this had she lived.

_No_ , Peter thought, squeezing his eyes shut. _I’m not going there_. But try as he might to slip into some patch of bright, the shadows followed, grasping at him with mighty tendrils, pulling him into guilt and loneliness.

He rolled onto his stomach, and buried his face in the pillow. Taking a breath proved his undoing; the last time he’d been here had been with MJ only a few days ago. Her scent had sunk into the pillow, all wild strawberry shampoo and delicate, orchidic perfume. Taking the scent into his lungs hurtled Peter through the lifeless ether into sheer memory.

Her beneath him; her on top of him. The press of her lips against his; the taste of her, the heat of her skin; her voice; her laugh; her anger.

Against all rationality, his body hardened. Too drunk on his own lust, Peter barely had attention left to curse his treacherous body. Because he didn’t want to be doing this; didn’t want to be grinding against a mattress that had been party to every single one of his adolescent fumblings; didn’t want to be peeling the bottom of his costume down the better to release that painful friction.

He felt himself pulled down into some turbulent abyss. The blackness raced through his veins, into his rapidly beating heart. His own body felt vessel to some unnatural thing—a marionette for this night-born need. It spun lies as it moved his hand over his hard flesh: he didn’t need a woman when he had a perfectly warm and dexterous hand; he could be alone; could amuse himself and berate himself and make himself come without some emotionally unstable harridan...

With a crumpled groan, Peter pressed the side of his cheek into the pillow. Heat tumbled from his gut. He shook as that white hot need spilled through his fingers and stained the sheets. And as the warmth and stickiness fully sank into his senses, the mantle of shadow lifted and he saw the whole situation for what it was: perfectly pathetic.

He’d journeyed through the night, running away from a situation that was perfectly manageable, to do what exactly? Jerk off on his old bed like some punk teenager? Peter sat up, feeling thoroughly stupid and even more ashamed. Was this what his life was going to be in perpetual bachelorhood? Was this really what he devolved to when he was alone? The same bereft, solitary intellectual who made an island out of his bedroom? He’d worked too hard and changed too much thanks to Mary Jane's vivacious lust for life to go crawling through the murk and mire back to this.

He needed to go home. He needed to man the fuck up. Pulling up his pants, Peter stumbled to the bathroom and hastily washed the evidence of his exploits from his fingers. Then he jammed his mask over his face. Looking at his reflection, he saw himself almost for the first time since he’d fallen apart: sure, Spider-Man complicated the ever-loving out of his life, but it also made him a piece of the whole. He was a man and a hero and neither of those things guaranteed imperviousness to the beasts of the night that dogged every living thing.

He let himself split just for a moment. Spider-Man stared at Peter Parker, narrowed his eyes and said: “Okay. You’ve emptied your balls. Now grow the fuck up and go home.”

He was out the window and swinging through what had now become a dense, cold mist in a matter of seconds. Every light from the city below served as a way-point back to the place he needed more than anything to be.

He only hoped that the fear he had didn’t prove founded once he got there.


	7. Chapter 7

Everything ached: her head, her heart, her legs, her lungs...Mist had crept along the streets of the Big Apple, biting and frigid. MJ felt inwardly thankful that she hadn’t decided to smoke after all. Running back to the apartment had knocked half the wind out of her. But the closer she got, the more bolstered she felt in the knowledge that she was doing the right thing.

Because she _could_ do the right thing; she _could_ make positive choices. She _could_ nurture and defend and love with the best of them. It didn’t matter what that dark animus told her—she only needed it when her claws came out. With Peter she didn’t have to fall back into the path of the brazen vixen in heat that she’d tried so hard to bury all her pain under. She could feel pain with him and not be ashamed.

Gasping like a winded mare, MJ hurried up the front steps of the apartment. She tore through the lobby doors and collided with the entrance to the lower floor. It was there, gasping for air with a stitch in her side, that she realized yet another great folly of the evening.

She’d left without her keys.

Mary Jane stared at her own indistinct reflection in the glass. Her hair was a tangled mess; her eyes were wide and now brimming with tears. She looked a fright, and she had nothing to show for it but bitter disappointment. But she wouldn’t fall to pieces. There were lights all throughout the building, and therefore, still hope. She hurried to the paging panel and dialed the code for hers and Peter’s suite.

It took three tries and twelve dial tones ending in silence for her to realize that there wasn’t anybody home to let her in.

Anger pounced at her like a raging lioness. She flung herself at the door, banging and wrenching at the handle. She snarled and yelled, not giving a flying fuck who saw or heard, what they thought or what they did. She’d come through so much to get back here.

“Let--me--in!” Her voice, choked with desperation and anger, echoed around the lobby. “Please! Let me in, Peter!” But the door didn’t budge, and she wasn’t going to smash through the reinforced windows.

Utterly bereft and broken spirited, Mary Jane slid down the glass and to the floor.

This time she really did begin to sob. Knees drawn up to her chin, head turned down so that the universe wouldn’t witness the she-bear falling apart, she let herself cry.

It had happened. The dread had proven not just a notion but a Cassandra truth. Here in this place she was cast aside for her own inability to just let there be something good in her life. If she’d just stayed at the night market with her handsome stranger then at least she wouldn’t be alone; at least she’d have had a buffer of flesh and heat and sex to hide behind. Granted it would have been empty, but...

Mary Jane’s head snapped upwards.

No.

She wouldn’t entertain that bullshit idea anymore. This was hard but not impossible. Compared to both Green Goblins, Shathra, Thanos, and Typeface to a lesser extent, this was nothing. She wouldn’t be defeated by this.

MJ got to her feet and walked back out into the mist and cold. It would be a long night, but she’d comb every part of New York City to find him if that’s what it took. Thusly having regained a grip on herself, she stepped down the sidewalk, hell bent on—

A faint yet familiar _thwick_ alerted her a split second before she felt the pressure on her back. A moment later her boots parted company with the pavement. Up and up through the cold air she went until, at last, she touched down on the roof access of the apartment building.

Spider-Man stripped his mask off before MJ had time to regain her equilibrium. One look at the lupine fierceness in his gaze and she both broke and came together again. His arms pulled her in, and she fell against him—her mate, her true knight, her human hero—and held on for dear life. 


	8. Chapter 8

He’d forgotten his key, but that hadn’t mattered because he’d modified their bedroom window for Spider-Man access. When he realized that Mary Jane wasn’t home, though, panic had seized him by the carotids. He’d been determined to swing between Chelsea and Connecticut if that’s what it took to find her. By sheer providence, he’d seen her on the street below and had reacted entirely on instinct.

Everything he’d held onto—everything that had kept him running—shattered as they clutched at each other on the cold, misty rooftop. They were together again, and that’s all that fucking mattered: not who started it all or what had been said. This was the important piece of the puzzle—that they could reunite after something that had threatened to rip them asunder.

MJ stared up at him, eyes streaming. She opened her mouth, but Peter put a gloved finger against her lips.

“Don’t say anything,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Unless you’re going to call me the most colossal dickhead in the multiverse.”

“Deal,” MJ said. “But only if you call me a raging bitch queen from Hell.”

“Aw, baby.” He held her again, and kissed the top of her head, taking that smell of hers back into his lungs. “How ‘bout we skip on the names.”

“Yeah. I think we’ve called each other just about everything on urban dictionary.” MJ took a deep breath. “While we’re at it let’s skip to the part where we’re past this, huh?”

“I don’t know...relationship therapists would say we should rehash everything.” Human beings though—like Johnny—wouldn’t stand for that kind of a theatrical display.

“Screw them,” MJ said. She shook her head and gazed at her feet. When at last she looked Peter in the eye, she said, her voice small and shamed, “I hate that we fought but...I hate who I am when I’m not with you.”

Peter put his hands on her shoulders. She was in pain and every instinct in him needed to soothe it. He thought of the depressed, lonesome little kid he’d turned into. “I hate who I am when I’m not with you, too.”

It was as profound as “I love you” but better because it wasn’t as commonplace.

MJ, ever practical, sighed and added, “Its going to happen again one day, isn’t it?”

“Not like that.” Because they’d learned better than to let all that raw ammunition stockpile; and they knew what would happen if they dared tread down this road again. Still, a flash of clairvoyance prompted him to say, “We’ll deal with it better next time, though.”

“Fucking A.” MJ shivered. Then she poked Peter in the chest. “Hey, why’re you in your skins underneath it all? Some of my favorite parts of you are going to get cold.”

“We’re all naked under our clothes, MJ.”

“I’m serious. You could catch pneumonia or something.”

He shrugged. “I kinda left without using my noodle.”

“That makes two of us.” MJ hooked her arm through his. “Put your glamor back up, tiger.”

Peter pulled his mask over his face. “I don’t know...what will all the busybodies think if they say you accompanied by a controversial public figure?”

“We’ll just say that you rescued me from a hideous beast...which you kinda did.”

Peter did as he was told. “Home?”

Mary Jane nodded, and leaned against him as they walked towards the roof access door. “Yes, please. Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think.


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